Firefox: Mozilla confirms support for classic extensions and Manifest V3 add-ons
While Google is ending support for classic extensions for more users of its Chrome web browser, several browser makers have pledged continued support for Manifest V2 extensions.
Mozilla confirmed in 2023 that the organization's Firefox web browser would support classic extensions and new extensions at the same time. It was not the only browser maker to pledge support. Brave Software and Opera Software also came forth and said that they would support at least some classic extensions.
Mozilla reaffirmed its stance on future extensions support in Firefox this week on the organization's official blog.
In short: Firefox will support Manifest V2 and V3 extensions at the same time going forward. Mozilla says that the decision will give developers more flexibility and "creative possibilities".
This also ensures that Manifest V3 extensions are compatible with the open source browser and that users can continue using their classic extensions. In other words, it is giving users access to the best of both worlds and developers the freedom to stick to Manifest V2 for their extensions or to use the newer Manifest V3 ruleset for extensions instead.
Manifest V3 is controversial
Google claimed from the very beginning that Manifest V3 was designed to improve security and performance of extensions and the browser as a consequence of that. First drafts introduced major changes that affected content blockers significantly.
Google conceded and got back to the drawing board multiple times to tone down the changes. The rollout of Manifest V3 was delayed numerous times, and the changes did play a role in that.
The current status is the following: Google has modified Manifest V3 to improve content blocker functionality. This happened after a large outcry from developers, publications, and users.
While Google has improved the situation, Manifest V3 is not as capable from the perspective of content blockers as Manifest V2. Raymond Hill, creator of the popular content blocker uBlock Origin, developed a weaker version of the extension for Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers in the process.
Even before that, he stated that the Firefox version of the extension offered the best content blocking capabilities. With Manifest V3, this advantage has shifted even more towards Mozilla's web browser.
Closing Words
Firefox users get the best of both worlds in regards to extensions going forward. They can keep on using their favorite extensions and they can start installing and using any extension that relies on the new extensions framework.
Chrome users on the other hand are left with support for new extensions only. While content blockers remain available for the browser, they offer less features than classic content blockers. To use those, Internet users need to either use a browser that continues to support classic extensions.
Now it is your turn. Are you affected by the change in Chrome? Do you use classic extensions that are not compatible with Manifest V3? Let us know in the comment section below.
“Manifest V3 is not as capable from the perspective of content blockers as Manifest V3.”
So, Manifest V3 is not equal to Manifest V3? Huh?
Please do a story about Firefox’s new terms of service.
Firefox is not fire and not fox. Mainly ember dog or even diying puppet.
firefox is alive more than you. seethe harder.
I don’t use chrome are any chromium based browser. Yes I use uBO on Firefox, LibreWolf and Mullvad. And no I don’t feel the need to bash people who use chromium or any of its forks.
Chromium is the popular one, if Developers don’t care about MV2, then, MV2 won’t matter.
Some people (Firefox fanweirdboys) always spread the misinformation about how adblockers are being killed by MV3, and that’s a complete lie, the reason why uBlock Origin is being turned off, is because Gorhill is NOT replacing uBlock Origin with uBlock Lite, and he is not ‘de-liteing’ the uBlock Lite.
The second point, is understandable, he already had the extension working great and porting it because of Google is not fair. Adguard and ABP did it because they get paid for it by some people, but uBlock is a free project. Of course, other extensions already ported to MV3 like tampermonkey and they are free as well, so anyway… it’s just whatever Developer wants.
about the first point, there is no excuse why Gorhill is not just replacing uBlock Origin with Lite… that means anyone who has uBlock Origin installed, will get their adblocker removed eventually, when he could just do what ABP and Adguard did, replace it and move on. Doing what Tampermonkey did, of releasing a MV2 alternative in the store is not an option anymore, but letting people to stay without adblocking is just weird, I am sure it is because he uses Firefox and hopes his little activism will bring some people to the sinking ship… but some people will not use Firefox and he is letting people to be without adblocker for whatever reason. If people needed to use the MV2, there is github for that, but normies should be able to keep adblockers and not get in some weird activism crap where uBlock Origin will ‘be removed’ instead of just update people to a MV3 even if it is the not so good Lite version.
Anyway, ABP and Adguard are pretty decent, both allows custom filters and Adguard has better Scriptlets than ABP, so Adguard will win in which one is better, but uBlock Lite is enough for 99% of people.
The only reason why people are making drama is uBlock Origin, any other Adblocker, userscript manager and extensions behind a developer and not just “last updated 2018” have already a MV3 version.
So… will Firefox support MV2 just because of uBlock? who cares, if they do, whatever and if they drop MV2 someday like they did with their XUL, then maybe uBlock Lite will be properly developed.
It’s just dumb when developers play this ‘political activism’ mindset, where they can’t just do what’s right and stop promoting dumb crap like Firefox, like if Firefox had a future, it has less than 3% marketshare, it won’t be higher ever again like 15 years ago when Brendan Eich was still at Mozilla.
Again, uBlock Origin could upgrade their users to uBlock Lite, and Gorhill decided not to, just like he decided not to add custom filters, because “it will stay lite”.
Some people (again firefox fanboys) even tell the fairy tale about how “upgrading lists requires a whole extension update”, what they don’t mention is how developers that have extensions that depends on declarativenetrequest can easily update the lists if the join the skip review program, so if only lists need to get updated they will only take minutes to do so, not days for the whole extension review https://developer.chrome.com/docs/webstore/skip-review .
So, for some reason people love to make drama and give misinformation, when these ‘issues’ could be solved by Gorhill, but he doesn’t care.
I am not talking about effectiveness between MV2 and MV3, obviously limits in MV3 while they might not affect most people, they are not good, plus many things can’t still be ported to Mv3 properly, so yes, Mv2 is theorically more powerful than Mv3, but doesn’t mean Mv3 can’t do basic adblocking like Network request filtering, cosmetic filtering which is only to inject display:none!important to the HTML element, or Scriptlet Injections which is what adblockers do, to do adblocking for services that deliver their ads through some JSON/JS and and all that like Youtube does.
So, I am not saying Mv3 is 100% okay, it is just enough for most people but it is not a great upgrade, but uBlock doesn’t have any excuse not to upgrade all uBlock users to uBlock Lite, so the issues with “Chromium removing X extension” will not matter.
Downgrade but better than nothing, of course Gorhill could have built a way to upgrade users and still give users with custom rules their rules in a place for people to copy and paste in Aguard or ABP or Brave or uBlock Mv2 in another browser or from github if necessary…
But anyway, the point is Firefox with Mv2 won’t matter, because Mv2 won’t matter in the end for most people, and Chromium will keep having more and more users. Mv3 is not the end of the world and Gorhill could have made things better for Chromium but he doesn’t care at all, and people should ask him why he hasn’t just replaced Mv2 with Mv3.
If Firefox users still lie about how Mv3 is killing adblockers when adblockers exists and/or hide the fact that Mv3 adblockers exist and are effective then… you can’t trust them for anything.
But just for comparison. ABP MV3 is exactly the same it was in Mv2, Adguard Mv3 while more limited it has supported every basic feature in Adguard Mv3 for 3 years, they even carry a lot of bugs from Mv2 to Mv3 that’s how good their porting is, but there is no reason why 99% of people who just install and hope not to get ads, are deceived to believe Firefox Mv2 matters, or they need to install Firefox because ‘ublock origin exists there, and Chromium is killing adblockers’
People are so weird and gatekeep anything they can, like gHacks never releasing an article about how easy is to create/add Scriptlets in Desktop Brave, easier than uBlock Origin (Mv2), and it will be added to Android soon as well. Something great to have in the browser, natively, without any extension needed, replacing most userscripts and all, without any issue or needing some file in the disk or remotely, but you firefox farted and then it got an article. Guess telling good information would drive users to forbidden Chromium based browsers, but if Firefox releases a broken basic tab groups and vertical tabs it surely got the article.
So please, don’t believe propaganda, you could even do Adblocking with Devtools because Adblockers are using the same web technologies web developers use, and they will not disappear unless Google removes declarativenetrequest API, and then CSS and JS from Chromium.
Just for your information, only DNR API has limits, for the rules that can block network requests, since adblocker lists have thousands of rules, that’s why they hit the limit or are close by default, even if you won’t use 99% of the websites in the lists and many are dead domains and all, but injecting CSS and JS have no limits, and technically, CSS and JS are what people care about more, since annoying ads like Youtube are blocked through JS. DNR is important for trackers, but then, many of the network requests blocked are assumed to be trackers, nobody knows for sure, so even if DNR disappeared, it would be the end of the world, but it won’t happen, Mv3 is mostly okay, like 86% okay compared to Mv2 and 99% of people shouldn’t have issues about it.
Tell and Ask Gorhill to replace uBlock Origin Mv2 with uBlock Lite, and stop the clown show!! I am not even asking to give custom filters and improve uBlock Lite to be better, I am just asking for people to actually make gorhill accountable for his weird decisions of leaving thousands of users without adblocking because he is being an activist.
Longest comment I have ever read here. And it will be the last one of its size. For sure.
For those who don’t want to read entire rant, he hates Firefox, uBlock, Gorhill, Ghacks.
the cope is INSANE
Stopped reading the long-winded rant at “fanweirdboys”. Guess we’re not allowed to question or even have an opinion other than one that pledges 100% loyalty to google and any decision it might make.
Anywho… It took about 5 minutes to find ublock origin adapted for chrome, installed it and all is running fine and ad-free as well as it has in the past.
What is it with Brave fanboys and text walls?
I ain’t reading all that shit. Users literally can search for uBlock Origin and install the Lite version. If you are not able do this simple thing you deserve to live with ads.
I stopped reading when people with different opinions were dismissed as “fanweirdboys,” which was luckily early on. People who offer insightful and professional takes do generally not talk like insecure trolls in junior high.
Hi google employer, I’m not reading any word.
@ Allwynd,
Do bear in mind that Firefox still allows users to configure every setting to their own liking via about:config. Additional privacy/security settings can also be added and they will work.
No Chrome based browsers will let you get anywhere near the internals as far as I’m aware.
Also, there are so many very useful addons such as “Behind The Overlay” which I find particularly useful to dismiss those annoying popups which try to get you to subscribe to the site in order to get access the info you really want to read and all it takes is a click of the button.
Personally, I don’t consider Firefox to be old fashioned by any means and will happily stick with it as I have been doing ever since the days of Netscape Navigator.
While I agree with the general idea of your post, there are 2 issues:
a) yes you CAN configure Firefox (or actually pretty much any browser), but the vast majority of people is actually too dumb to do it or doesn’t care, that’s why the base configuration matters. It shows, eg how the IE market share skyrocketed, when it first became bundled with Windows. Switching a browser is as obviously as trivial as it gets, but non of the Windows-bots ever did or even considered doing that (even though it should be obvious that a tight integration of application into OS security is NOT a good idea. Isolation is the far better approach).
People just don’t configure their devices, systems and apps, that’s why the base configuration matters a lot.
b) Surprisingly: Chrome also has an about:config (same name and called the same way as in Firefox), with a TON of configuration options (roughly 74 letter-sized pages). I was completely flabbergasted by that.
I don’t doubt, that some things that are important to Google are likely absolutely unconfigurable via about:config and hardcoded into the browser (so could only be changed by patching the binary, if one really wanted to), but one has to give it to chrome and derivatives like Brave, that it is at least in principle as configurable as Firefox.
Make that x2 since Netscape Navigator! Lol
Hit the “reply” button next time, dawg
I recently watched a video on YouTube about some ex-Firefox engineer who explained how Firefox is mired in ancient code from back in the 1999 NetScape era and how this has and still is preventing Firefox from being modernized and it’s still running on a lot of old code and nobody really knows if that will be phased out or rewritten in 5-10-20 years or not.
I’ve always felt like Firefox looked ancient under the hood compared to Chromium browsers and each time I used Firefox for a prolonged amount of time, it always felt “old underneath” and it showed when some websites weren’t properly supported and so forth.
Which is why I can’t really use Firefox anymore, and haven’t for the past 10+ years or so, which leads me to this article right here – Firefox plans to support old extensions, Manifest V3 extensions and who knows what else. Which I think makes the browser code even more fragmented and rigid.
I think right now their goal is to keep supporting old extensions, namely uBlock Origin as a leverage to remain relevant in a browser market where Firefox keeps losing relevancy by the minute. While currently I dislike Firefox and everything it stands for, as well as its most vocal supporters, because I think they are giving even more bad reputation to Firefox, I wish to see Firefox rewritten from scratch in a modern language, be it Rust or whatever and for it to become competitive again, but I don’t see how supporting old extensions will gain them any new users as browsers like Brave and to an extent Vivaldi and Opera come with built-in content blocking that allows you to add custom filter lists and make it even more robust.
I haven’t had much success with Vivaldi and Opera, for some reason Vivaldi on Android, even with custom filter lists, seems to be doing a really poor job at blocking undesirable content, especially YouTube ads, same with Opera on Android – its so-called “ad-blocking” is so weak that besides the most baseline cosmetic blocking, it barely does anything, since lots of websites still bombard you with pop-up ads and opening new windows, I don’t know if it’s called “rogue pop-ups” or what, but so far only Brave on Android with its filters set to Aggressive seems to be doing a good job while not reducing speed. On PC, I use Brave with all its filters set on Agressive and it’s good enough for me. So I don’t see people moving to Firefox just so they can keep using uBlock Origin, I would imagine instead them moving to something like Brave so they can keep using Chromium instead.
Why I wouldn’t use Firefox itself (I have gripes with the Firefox Foundation), I use Firefox-based browsers. And they are pretty much as fast as Chrome based browsers. I have to admit that I do not use big apps like Microsoft 365 inside browser, but for everything else difference is not really noticeable.
If you have not used Firefox in over ten years, and rely on former engineers to tell you how “ancient” it is, it is not surprising you have not kept up and think Chromium is better.
Some things work regardless of their age. The question is will they keep working if they are deliberately broken, aka, planned obsolescence.
I’ve used Firefox as recent as maybe a few months ago and it’s still bad and outdated. They change their UI all the, but nothing really changes.
There used to be more freedom for customizing the UI of FIrefox, like having tabs below the address bar and moving a lot more elements around, replacing the buttons’ theme with another, now themes are just a texture.
In your original post you said you hadn’t used Firefox for 10 years, now you say you used it a few months ago. Did you just say 10 years for dramatic effect?
The UI in Firefox is far more customizable than Google based browsers. Just drag and drop.
Webkit/Blink is not new either, like Firefox it has been updated, but it’s underlying code dates back to 1998.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebKit#Origins
userChrome.css, you can change whatever you want. There are ready-made css files you can download where you just flip the preferences to how you want. The customization is exactly why I use a Firefox-based browser. It’s once in a blue moon that I actually need to use a Chromium-based browser for anything and I use Firefox ESR. In my experience this claim of website incompatibility is an exaggeration.
I have to agree about that. I miss a ton of customization options that were removed from Firefox.